New Testament Conjectural Emendation: Folly or Duty?

Activity: Talk or presentationInvited talk (lezing op uitnodiging)

Description

Over the centuries hundreds of scholars have been engaged in New Testament conjectural emendation. Together they proposed more than 6.000 conjectures, that is, on average almost one for every verse. Yet to most New Testament textual critics, today and in the past, the Greek New Testament does not need conjectures at all, or at best as a last resort for a very small number of complex cases. Moreover, until recently, the few conjectures more commonly known were only those that happened to be listed in the apparatus of former Nestle editions. Since it can be presumed, on the one hand, that the conjectural critics were not foolish but acting out of a sense of duty, the question arises why their work has been so marginalised. But since, on the other hand, the vast majority of conjectures will still fail to convince anyone except their authors, the question also arises what value can possibly lay in the painstaking collection and study of conjectures and their authors.
Period19 May 2022
Event titlePen, Print, and Pixels: Text and Manuscript Conference
Event typeConference
LocationDallas, United States, TexasShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational